Balancing my life

By Anonymous · Dec. 06, 2000

several incidences of self-scarification due to depression, my flesh is
no stranger to a sharp blade. Up to now, however, my scars have not meant
anything  they have merely been a means of releasing pent up anger for a
cheap endorphin thrill. Those scars and this share the same roots; however the
scar of which I shall tell has a far deeper meaning spiritually than any
inflicted prior to it.
One particularly bad day used up six months' worth
of bad days, and I was left angry, hurt and full of dark thoughts. I had an
overwhelming urge to mark myself, reunite my skin with the knife. That it
would last a long time  perhaps forever  was a given, I wanted it that way.
It was a simple matter of what and where. I stood in front of my small wall
mirror and stared my reflection down, pondering my body. The location came to
me within a few minutes: half an inch below the end of my collarbone on my
left shoulder. Satisfied with the location, I sat down in my chair and began
to ponder what I would leave marked in white. It had to be something simple,
geometric and easy to do myself. I thought, and thought, and though; ten
minutes at least passed. Then, it came to me: a triangle, point upright. I
don't know why I was drawn so strongly to it once it appeared in my mind's
eye, but I just knew it was right.
Armed with a design and placement, I
found a pen on my desk and drew it where I wanted it to be. I smudged it off
and redrew twice before I was satisfied with the design. I took a deep breath
and opened my swiss army knife. I touched the tip to the top point of the
triangle and drew it slowly down the side nearest my neck. I brought it back
up and repeated the line perhaps four times to ensure it was deep enough. The
bottom line was next. I sliced from the outside in. Meeting the two lines at
the corner was a little bit difficult, but not overly so. As I went to begin
the third line, the corner began to drip blood down my chest. I held a Kleenex
to it, and it soaked in immediately. I moved the tissue and a minute or so of
pressure finally stopped the flow enough to allow me to make the last cut. I
started at the top again, and carved hard down to the bottom. The lines met,
but didn't fully touch  it was very difficult to sever the last tiny bit of
skin between them to fully isolate the triangle in the middle. I picked at it
for a minute, then sliced at it some more, and got far enough through it that
it was essentially of no more matter. By this time, the blood was flowing
quite quickly, and I covered several Kleenexes in bloody triangles. I went
over the last line again because I wasn't fully satisfied with it. More blood.
I eventually got it all to stop, and smiled. I had it. I had my triangle. I
went to bed not long after, and the slight throbbing on my shoulder was easy
to ignore, it didn't bother me or pain me in the slightest.
By the time I
woke up it had scabbed over, and the skin around it was angry and red. A few
days later, the scabs had taken on a slightly yellow tinge, and I figured it
was slightly infected. 'All the better,' I thought, 'it will leave that much
more of a scar.'
All told, it took about two and a half weeks for the
scabs to finally go away, leaving me my scar. I picked at the scabs a fair
deal as it healed, to ensure better scarring. Now that they're finally all
gone, I can see how its turned out: The last line I cut is slightly wider
than the other two, probably due to the number of times I went over it trying
to get the ends to cut properly. The skin around it is still a little red,
but I'm sure that will go away with time.
So now I have my triangle. It
means a lot to me, but why does it? I didn't know until a few days ago, when
the meaning came to me as surely as did the image. The triangle stands for
balance. Good days need bad to balance them. Happiness needs sadness. But
more than that, it represents a balancing of the physical body, the
intelligent body and the emotional body. The bottommost line represents the
physical, the left side represents the emotional (as it is closer to my
heart) and the right side the intellectual. The triangle is simply a
wonderfully aesthetically balanced figure. The number three has traditionally
held power: in "pagan" religions, in fairy tales, even in folklore and life.
In pictograms, a triangle is used to represent the fulcrum or centerpoint on
a balance (scales).

Later today I intend to go lightly over the

two narrower lines to balance it out. Why not? It only makes sense. Perhaps
some time in the future I will have a professional make a larger, triangular
design, which covers more of my shoulder, using my original triangle as the
center. We'll see. In the mean time, I have my little triangle to remind me
that in life, all things are balanced.

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submitted by: Anonymouson: 06 Dec. 2000in
Scarification

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